Kelly Royds is a PhD candidate in the School of Humanities and Languages. She is also the Program Coordinator of ChildFund Connect, a global education program from ChildFund Australia that uses multimedia technology to help Australian children connect with their peers in developing countries. Kelly and the ChildFund Connect program recently had their work featured in a Channel 7 Prime news story, which describes how an international film festival on the theme of 'family', connected children from small towns in Australia and South-East Asia via films they wrote and made themselves.

Kelly is also currently working with Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald - Professor of Comparative Film Studies at UNSW - on the project ‘Migration and mobility: the question of childhood in Chinese and European cinema since 1945’. Professor Hemelryk Donald is the lead researcher and ARC Future Fellow of this project.

Kelly’s work is an evaluative study of NGO outreach, incorporating participatory video, intercultural communications and child-based research practice. Her research explores the use of participatory video to promote voice, agency and intercultural dialogue between groups of children in Australia and South-East Asia.

Watch the news story on Kelly and ChildFund Connect's International Family Film Festival here: